Barcodes, order processing and Parcelforce

[alexrpaul]

Our company has undergone a massive growth in net sales recently due to advertising in the US while being great news on some fronts it is causing some problems.

Export customers like to be notified when their products are despatched and also like tracking numbers. I have been thinking for some time about some kind of barcode system to scan parcelforce tracking numbers into a an e mail program of some kind. I have been told that this should not be too much of a problem. The question is how I then recover the e mail address without typing it in manually. As far as I can see there are a couple of options, the packing list could have the order number in a barcode font (thanks for the info on that Jan) and this could then refer to the actinic database for the e mail. Alternatively I thought it may be possible to also turn the e mail address on the packing list into a barcode font. The Packing dept could then scan the e mail address, tracking number and order number in sequence, use them to populate an automated e mail and these could all be sent at the end of the day.
This could possibly be done without reference to the actinic database at all does anyone have any experience in this field or suggestions as to people that may e able to help.

Thanks as always,

Alex

[NormanRouxel]

Hi Alex,

In the Orders section of Actinic you can send e-mail to the customer. See Orders / Mail / New. You can choose from templates, one of which is an Order Despatched one. You can type additional info into the generated e-mail or, if you have a keyboard wedge type scanner just beep the bacode and it's in.

Norman

Ps. Thanks for the complimentary sword. It looks great. I'll try not to run amok with it in Princes Street

[alexrpaul]

No problem for the Sword thanks for all you kind help over the years!

I was aware of the mail feature in Actinic but I didn't really want to have to work from this machine (upstairs). I was hoping to sort something out in the packing department downstairs that could do it over the network or independantly (blasphemy I know) of actinic!

I have never used a barcode keyboard wedge. Does it just read the code and input the info directly into wherever the cursor is on the screen?

[NormanRouxel]

These wedgy scanners are easy to use.

You unlug your keyboard from the PC , plug the wedge into the PC instead and plug the keyboard into the wedge. The keyboard works as before with the addition that anything you scan is entered into whatever program you're running just like you typed it in on the keyboard.

I'm in at Snowlines at the moment and they use just this system to send Pacelforce details to customers.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Had another thought.

If you run Actinic on only one system (upstairs) and you occasionally need to run off these e-mails (downstairs) then you could use remote control software to let the downstairs system take control of upstairs.

Basically you'd pause whatever you were doing on the upstairs PC, go off and do something else, and let downstairs take over.

Downstairs would temporarily see the screen display of upstairs and anything they click, key in or scan would be entered onto the upstairs system. When they're done they just disconnect and yell at you to let you know you can go back to work.

You can experiment with this at no cost as there's well known freeware out there that does this. See www.realvnc.org for example.

Norman

[alexrpaul]

Cool,

I will have a look at the freeware. My only concern is that I am not sure how happy I am about letting other people play with my precious actinic!

Do you know who sold the wedge(s) to snowlines, and whether or not they were any good?

Alex

[NormanRouxel]

These wedges are a few years old and are now so battered I'm not sure what type they are. I just did a very quick search on DABS for wedge scanners and saw http://www.dabs.com/uk/productView.htm?quicklinx=2NJ6 For £136. They're also the sort of thing that's advertised a lot in the back pages of most upmarket PC magazines.

Here's a great info shhet on bar coding. http://www.barcodehq.com/primer.html

Now hears an idea. Jan ( www.mole-end.biz ) is the printed reports Guru. If she's listening it might be an idea to display the customers e-mail address and Order Number on the printed reports in a bar-code format (Code 39 or Code 128 looks likely). Now you could use any e-mail program to scan in the e-mail address, tracking info and order number from that bit of paper and the Parcelforce ticket. You might need to use a Wand type scanner (the ones that look like a pen) as e-mail addresses can be quite long and these hand scanners can only see a certain number of characters at once whereas a wand can keep going 'till you run off the paper.

Norman

[alexrpaul]

I have e mailed Jan to see what she thinks.

Thanks for the input Norman.

[Jan]

It should be very easy to add barcodes to crystal reports - you do need to install a custom barcode fonts (which you have to buy) but after that it is relatively straight forward.

I'm looking into a font now for Alex and will post results here.

Regards,

[smiffy]

There are a couple of FREE barcode fonts available... 3of9 is the one I use. I also have a spare Barcode Scanner - its a serial version, but works just the same - wherever the cursor sits it type the numbers.

As for using it for email address you'll find that there is no support for the @ symbol.

I have modified my Data Entry Report to include the order number as barcode, and then scan this with the Royal Mail one into my tracking spreadsheet.

Currently I just copy and paste the customers email address from the order confirmation email.

PS: Scaners for sale if you interested ;-)

[alexrpaul]

Thanks for the offer smiffy,

Unfortunately I purchased a barcode scanner and font tool yesterday. They are quite reasonably priced if you buy from the US because the $ is so low.

I believe font 128 has support for special characters (i was hoping this would include @ but we shall see).

I am also (with a little help from a couple of french degree level computing exchange students) trying to set up a system that checks the order details from the access database using only the scanned order number.

I will let everyone know how I get on.

Alex

[Aby]

Hi Smiffy, how did you "I have modified my Data Entry Report to include the order number as barcode, and then scan this with the Royal Mail one into my tracking spreadsheet. " I currently use royal mail recorded delivery and it is a pain when you have to track an order manually, any tips would be greatly appreciated!

[smiffy]

What part of that long sentance would you like to know more about?

The Recorded delivery labels have a barcode which you can scan into excel and then track them on the royal mail web site.

I have modified the data entry report to include a barcode so I can scan that as well.

I then have an Excel sheet with columns for Order No, Royal No etc etc

Its then easy to copy and paste this into the RM web site, or customer emails

[Aby]

Thanks for your reply smiffy. Did you use crystal reports to get the bar code onto the delivery note? I currently use the data entry report for address labels, so it may be an idea to have the bar code appear on the address label. I think I would need crystal report for that?

[alexrpaul]

You could try Jan (see post above).

She has done loads of work for me at very reasonable prices and could easily add barcodes to whatever report that you want.

I also find her packing list with integrated lable invaluable see http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Mailing_Labels.html.

She has also customised our invoices with colour logos etc... so they look more professional.

Alex